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John Arden (26 October 1930 – 28 March 2012) was an English Marxist playwright who at his death was lauded as "one of the most significant British playwrights of the late 1950s and early 60s"〔 Born in Barnsley, son of the manager of a glass factory, he was educated at Sedbergh School in Cumbria, King's College, Cambridge and the Edinburgh College of Art, where he studied architecture. He first gained critical attention for the radio play ''The Life of Man'' in 1956 shortly after finishing his studies. Arden was initially associated with the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London. His 1959 play, ''Serjeant Musgrave's Dance'', in which four army deserters arrive in a northern mining town to exact retribution for an act of colonial violence, is considered to be his best. His work was influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Epic Theatre. Other plays include ''Live Like Pigs'', ''The Workhouse Donkey'', and ''Armstrong's Last Goodnight'', the last of which was performed at the 1963 Chichester Festival by the National Theatre after it was rejected by the Royal Court. His 1978 radio play ''Pearl'' was considered in a ''Guardian'' survey〔(John Arden's Radio Plays ), Retrieved 2009-18-09〕 to be one of the best plays in that medium. He also wrote several novels, including ''Silence Among the Weapons'', which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1982,〔("John Arden" ), Man Booker Prize website〕 and ''Books of Bale'', about the Protestant apologist John Bale. He was a member of the Royal Society of Literature. With his wife and co-writer Margaretta D'Arcy he picketed the RSC premiere of his Arthurian play ''The Island of the Mighty'', because they thought the production was pro-imperialist, and they wrote several plays together which were highly critical of British presence in Ireland, where he and D'Arcy lived from 1971.〔 In 1961 he was a founder member of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, and he also chaired the pacifist weekly ''Peace News''. In Ireland, he was for a while a member of Official Sinn Féin. He was an advocate of civil liberties, and opposed anti-terror legislation, as demonstrated in his 2007 radio play ''The Scam''. He was elected to Aosdána in 2011 before dying in Galway in 2012. He was waked in a wicker casket. ==Awards== * Evening Standard Award, 1960 * John Whiting Award, 1973 * V. S. Pritchett Award, 2003 * Booker Prize shortlist, 1982 * Giles Cooper Award, 1982 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Arden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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